


For My Hands Have Tasted Death

by IllyanaA



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Cal deals with the effects of his gift, Gen, Psychometry, canon compliant character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21615406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IllyanaA/pseuds/IllyanaA
Summary: Cal Kestis learns why pyschometrics should treat death with caution. It can have unintended consequences.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 180





	For My Hands Have Tasted Death

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, I've had this written for a week and can't get it perfected. But this demanded to be written. Demanded! Cal Kestis has a special place in my heart.

He screamed as he watched his friend fall not but a few meters in front of him, battle droid fire hitting its mark square in Olpo’s breastplate. He surged towards him, lightsaber flashing in a desperate attempt to keep the blasterfire away from his friend. He managed to deflect several of the shots before sliding to his knees next to Olpo’s motionless form. Cal reached out to set a hand on his chest, to beg the Force to heal him, to _save_ him, but when his fingertips brushed the Kaminoan armour, his senses flooded with a deluge of feelings. Short but painful bursts of memory. The moments of Olpo’s death, stretched out for what felt like an eternity.

Pain, searing pain exploded in his own chest like his heart had been set ablaze. He collapsed down onto the trooper’s chest under the weight of it, excruciating pain traveling through his own body as he came into closer contact. His control of the Force muddled in the agony, he couldn’t get a grasp on it, couldn’t release into it. He was dragged down beneath the flood of fear, pain, shock, _nothing_ that Olpo felt in his last breaths. Cal knew he was trembling, but couldn’t drag himself away from the corpse, anchored there by the contact. He was trapped in an endless vortex on agony and fear—

Until a pair of hands and a familiar presence pulled him up out of the storm and on to a broad chest. In an instant, the roaring faded, leaving him with a dull echo, but he couldn’t detach his mind completely. It hit him in waves now, not violent and strong, but like those that rolled up near the shore. It kept him floating just beyond reach of his grip on which feelings were _his_ and which were Olpo’s. His master held his trembling form close, surrounding his mind with his own, speaking words Cal couldn’t yet hear. He felt each of the final threads cut by Master Tapal as he lifted him from the confines of his own mental prison.

Shaken, exhausted, he leaned into his master’s chest, still trembling hands clutching the fabric of his tunics.

“Easy, Cal.” He could make out the Lasat’s voice now. “Keep your mind in the present.”

“I felt him die, Master. I—I…”

“I know. You must release it. That was his experience, not yours. Find yourself again in this moment.”

He did his best to obey, breathing in time with the rise and fall of the chest he leaned against. He grasped onto his master’s signature as he tried to feel what Master Tapal felt in this moment. The peace. The finality. The Living Force present around them. It was then he realized that the battlefield was silent. The earlier chaos had settled. He sat up straighter, and Master Tapal relaxed his grip on the boy’s shoulders just enough to allow him a bit of movement. The Padawan brought his hands in front of him and willed them to still as best he could. He looked back to the droid parts scattered before him and turned to Master Tapal in askance.

“You deflected every bolt.”

He looked back at Olpo’s body, in grief now instead of pain. He hadn’t been fast enough, couldn’t protect his friend, and now he was dead because of it. Master Tapal drew him upright and led him towards the landed LAAT that was to be their ticket to the forward camp. He sat against the wall of the transport and drew his knees up to his chest. Later, after being granted a bit of time alone for meditation, his Master told him that psychometrics were discouraged from touching the dead and dying, for fear that the trauma from the death and any associated emotions could pull the user towards the Darkness. For a violent death like Olpo had faced, the echo was strong and packed with fear. He didn’t think he would ever touch the Dark Side like that, but he had learned one thing for certain. He never wanted to feel _that_ again.

* * * * * * *

The next time he felt the agony of death, it came from his Master. After just barely stumbling inside the escape pod door, he rushed to Master Tapal’s side, pressing both hands to his chest as he leaned over the body. His mind overloaded at the contact, telemetric power exacerbated by their connection as Master and Padawan. He felt the burning of each wound in his chest, the effort for his lungs to catch each breath. His weakening heartbeat thrummed beneath his fingers; final precious words strained out with every shuddering breath. He knew even before he touched him that the he was dying. He focused on those last words, the hand on his shoulder that reached up for the briefest of moments to brush his cheek before falling to press a damaged lightsaber into his grip. The weapon itself, so full of the echoes of his Master’s memory, added another blast of impressions to his already frantic mind. The shock, the betrayal, the unimaginable pain of his death punched into him, even as other more joyful memories rose up unbidden from the hilt. A fierce protectiveness for his Padawan. Playful teasing during sparring lessons.

It was too much. Somehow, he managed to find the strength to tear himself away from the Jedi’s body and clamour across the pod. Unable to center himself, unable to release any of to the Force, he screamed until his throat went raw, tapped in the chaos in his own heart and in the Force around him. He clutched the lightsaber despite the pain that lingered in it, choosing instead to reach in and grab hold of the last whispers of Master Tapal’s signature. And as the pod descended to Bracca’s surface, he curled in on himself and wept.

He would wait on Bracca. Someone from the Order would come for him eventually. They could take Master Tapal’s body for a proper funeral. One day, the galaxy would quiet, the Darkness wouldn’t be so smothering. One day, he would be the kind of Jedi that would make Jaro Tapal proud. One day, he wouldn’t have the lingering echo of his Master’s death in his hands.


End file.
